What is Accounting Software?

Accounting Software –What exactly is it? Accounting software can mean dfferent things to different people and companies. Even though we call it accounting software, it can have implications to the warehouse, manufacturing, sales, ecommerce and many other areas in your company. Because of this, you should take care when deciding to replace your system. What are the steps to follow? Regardless of size of the company, be sure to complete a process review. A process review will make sure that all processes of the company are documented and that you know what features you are looking for in a new solution. Use this review as your guide for finding the best accounting software that fits your company’s needs.

1. Try to identify no more than three packages to review. If you try to tackle any more than that, you can get what we call paralysis by analysis. You will get overwhelmed in the comparison and end up not doing anything.


2. It is just as important to choose the right partner that can execute the implementation as it is to choose to the right software. Make sure the company is local, has been in business for a number of years, and have worked with similarly sized companies with a comparable complexity to yours.

What are the various levels of software to look at?

• If you are a small company (< $5MM per year in revenue) with basic accounting needs, a small user count, and have a good accountant then an off the shelf accounting package like Peachtree or QuickBooks will probably work for you.


• If you are a medium size company ($5 – $25MM per year in revenue) be sure to look at software that is fully integrated and is scalable. You want to make sure that if you are ten users today that the system can handle when you become twenty users. In addition, issues like multiple locations, warehouse management, and multi-currency can drive you to this type of software. Examples of these would be Sage MAS 90 or MAS 200 or Microsoft Dynamics GP.


• For larger companies (between $25MM- $500MM in revenue) a more comprehensive solution will be required. Issues that will drive this could be a high user count, many locations, high volume of transactions, or a complex reporting structure. Examples of these systems would be Sage MAS 500, Microsoft Dynamics NV, and SAP.

Lastly, it is critical to involve all levels of your company in this decision, not just executives. This change will affect the line level employees much more than the executives. They also know what it takes to do their job.